Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Fun with first-half stats

You’ve heard it before. If you dissect the numbers enough, you can pretty much get them to say whatever you want them to say. But, sometimes, they’ll say things you might not have expected, too. Such is the case when poring through the first-half splits for the Blue Jays.

Did you know that Brandon Morrow hates the road? Or that Jose Molina has stats to back up being a leadoff man? How about the fact that Edwin Encarnacion performs better when he doesn’t work the count? And that whole run support issue with Ricky Romero? Well, hey, he pitches better without it.

So let’s have some fun with the first-half stats…

Shaun Marcum, RHP: The right-hander held lefties to a .177 average. Impressive stuff. Right-handed hitters defied conventional thinking, though, and raked at a clip of .304 against the pitcher.

Brett Cecil, LHP: Opposing teams might consider moving their best run producers out of the heart of the lineup when Cecil pitches. He held No. 3 hitters to a .154 average and no homers.

Brandon Morrow, RHP: What’s the opposite of road warrior? In nine starts outside of Toronto, Morrow went 0-5 with a 6.80 ERA.

Ricky Romero, LHP: The Jays’ offense went quiet on many nights Romero toed the rubber. When the O put up 0-2 runs, though, the left-hander fashioned a 1.17 ERA.

Brian Tallet, LHP: The lefty meant it when he said he preferred to work as a starter. In nine games out of the ‘pen, he posted an 8.40 ERA with six homers yielded in 15 innings.

Jesse Litsch, RHP: The sixth inning might as well have been the 666th inning. Litsch had an 18.90 ERA (six runs, 3.1 IP) and gave up nine hits (four homers) in the sixth.

Kevin Gregg, RHP: A little rest did wonders for the big fella. When he pitched with three days of rest, Gregg had a 2.25 ERA with eight strikeouts in eight innings.

In defence of Brian Tallett, I would like to point out that his last 9 games have been against Colorado, San Francisco, Philly, Cleveland, New York, Minnesota, and Boston, with the only softy being Cleveland (2.0IP, 0ER). He only really got shelled by San Francisco, New York, and Boston, who make a habit of doing that to pitchers. He has only been called in when the game is in the dumper anyway, and his job is to take one for the team and save the bullpen for next day. He has thrown 15 innings in his last 9 outings, or 1.667 innings/appearance, so I would say he is earning his money.

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